January 29, 2018 – Mark 1:21-28
Mark 1:21-28
Words Words Words
Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany – Lectionary 4
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
About this time of year I start to get tired of words.
I’ve been preaching for 5 months or so at this point and I begin to feel a little overwhelmed.
Plus the fact that we are inundated by words every day.
So many words – and then we wonder about the truthfulness of all the words we hear.
The news and social media are filled with words:
with judgements and accusations and thoughtlessness.
But here’s the thing: words are powerful.
Their power may seem to be diluted by how inundated we are by them.
But words are still powerful.
And so while I feel like I may want to take a break from words,
I have to trust that words can still do what the creator intended for them.
I have to trust that words can still bring life and hope and healing.
In the beginning God said . . .
We should always pause when we hear that as we did a couple of weeks ago in worship.
At the beginning of all things God simply spoke.
And God spoke the universe into being.
We’ve heard it a hundred times, that story.
But we should never forget that in our tradition words can speak things into being.
Like every gift of God, words can be abused and words and can bring death.
But the potential in them is enormous.
They bring worlds into being – they can bring life and healing.
All that is was spoken into being by God.
In the Truth and Reconciliation process, words have proven essential to healing and justice.
Victims have been encouraged to voice their experiences while the accused must listen.
The past couple of weeks at the Larry Nasser sentencing hearing, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina
has set a precedent of allowing victims of sexual misconduct to speak at
the hearing, something rarely done until now.
At the hearing over 150 victims came forward to speak.
There has been great controversy as to whether or not that was the appropriate place for
the victims to speak, but all who spoke seemed genuinely grateful –
as difficult as it was – to speak their experience publicly before the accused.
Words are still powerful, very powerful, and we pray with all our might that
the words spoken by the victims might be an important piece of the healing process.
The victims’ experiences robbed them of the abundant life God intends for them.
But words somehow amazingly offered them an opportunity of regaining that life.
In the strange but strangely powerful Gospel story this morning,
all we know about the man Jesus helps is that he has an “unclean spirit.”
We don’t really know what, exactly, that means.
Generations of interpreters thought that might mean the man had epilepsy,
but there is no evidence for that and few believe that to be true any more.
What is widely agreed upon is that we simply don’t know what it meant for the man.
What we do know is that the man’s life had been robbed by something that had taken him over.
He is not even allowed to speak anymore – he doesn’t even have his own voice:
the unclean spirit speaks for him.
What it says, though, is very important as it asks Jesus a rhetorical question:
“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?”
The answer is so obvious that Jesus doesn’t even bother to answer.
Because the answer, of course, is everything: Jesus has everything to do with
the unclean spirits that plague us.
When Jesus is baptized, the Holy, life-giving Spirit of God descends on him.
He carries with him the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit that
brought abundant life and creation into being at the very beginning.
And now his mission is to bring that Holy Spirit into people’s lives who are filled with
unclean spirits, spirits that rob us of the abundant life we were created for.
And how does he do it?
He does it, Mark tells us, with words.
He comes to the synagogue teaching.
He uses his voice.
And he uses his words.
Jesus speaks, and things happen.
It turns out we can still have confidence in words to do the thing God intends: to bring life.
This morning I want you to use your words – I want you to help me out.
The fact that we don’t know exactly what the unclean spirit was that was plaguing the man
is actually kind of boon for the preacher.
We can name them for ourselves!
We know there are many spirits about that rob us of the abundant life God intends.
Sleeplessness, worry, ill health.
Mental illness, emotional illness, physical illness.
Anger, fear, hatred, envy and greed.
Mistrust, being disrespected, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse.
Addiction, loss of gainful employment, belligerent or unsafe working conditions.
Despair, shame, grief.
Harrassment, discrimination, racism, and sexual misconduct.
There are so many unclean spirits about.
But it helps to name them – it’s powerful to name them.
So this morning I want you to take a moment and name some of the unclean spirits in your life.
Take a few seconds to quickly jot them down on the paper you were given.
What are the things that are robbing you of abundant life? Write them down now.
When you are done, fold your paper and hold onto it until it’s time for the offering.
Then make it one of the things you are giving to Jesus this morning,
just as the man in the story gave up his to Jesus.
So that Jesus could make room for the Holy Spirit in the man,
and replace the unclean spirit with the Holy Spirit so the man could live again.
The man didn’t know what would happen.
But somehow Jesus’ words were powerful.
His words communicated many things – and one thing they communicated was that Jesus cares.
They communicated to the man that God cared about him – that he was of concern to God.
And that, in itself, is powerful and healing.
This week a woman came to me whose family has experienced an unimaginable tragedy.
She just needed to talk to me.
She just needed someone to talk to.
She is the one everyone in her family expects to be strong and
she just needed a support outside her family.
She needed to name her unclean spirit.
I had no magic wand, I had no program for success to offer her.
And I certainly offered her no platitudes.
I just cared enough to listen to all she had to say and to affirm through my words that
I was hearing every single word she said.
And then she said, “I feel so much lighter and able to go on. I haven’t felt like this in weeks.”
Words are powerful.
Jesus’ Holy, life-giving Spirit can still come through them.
Because he has given that Spirit to us.
And his Spirit will come through us when we speak words that communicate care.
As for my words this morning?
Well, now that I’ve come to the end of it I think I’ve done okay! Hahahaha!
I hope I’ve spoken words that will nurture love.
I hope these words will bestow on you the grace and love of God.
I hope these words will build up community and relationships.
I hope these words will form a people of compassion and justice.
I hope these words will bring healing.
I hope these words will send us in mission.
I hope these words will instill wonder at being alive.
I hope that these words have communicated to you that God cares deeply about you and
wants you and the person sitting next to you and all creation to have abundant life.
And I hope these words will instill deep trust in a good and gracious God,
a God who is still speaking and still working to bring abundant life to all people.
So together, with a word that means “Yes! It shall be so!” let us say together, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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